Oct. 30 Mail: Gambling, Lombardi, Crime City and More

Posted:
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 12:00 am

Florida Needs a Gaming Commission

Any problems with gambling in Florida are simple to solve [“The Sting,” Oct. 16]. Start a Gaming Commission, such as the state of Nevada has, to include a Gaming Control Board. The commission issues licenses within state guidelines; the control board makes sure the games are fair and legal and investigates complaints. The reason the state doesn’t do what I recommend above is politics. With a Gaming Commission, our representatives can’t peddle influence at election time, and/or allow the racing industry to run our state’s gambling via racetracks and card rooms. Until those changes are made, gambling/gaming in Florida will continue to be discombobulated.

Rey Gonzalez

No Love for Lombardi

REALLY! I grew up in Milwaukee during Lombardi’s reign, and I think this play is nothing more than historical revisionism [“Pride of the Packers,” Oct. 16].

Lombardi was so disliked by Packers fans and the Board of Directors (the Pack is the only publicly owned NFL team) that they stripped him of his head coach position and left him as general manager that final year. When he left for the Washington Redskins, we fans were happy to see him go. Reason: He was a big bully who maltreated <> of his players. When it was his favorites, he treated them very well, but the average player was bullied.

On his faith, what a joke! The Bible says “By your fruits you will know them.” St. James says “faith without works is dead.” Where, oh where, was Lombardi’s mercy? We in Wisconsin did not see any.

Steve Miller

Jacksonville

Letter Writer Needs Empathy

I just read S. Duane England’s letter about more name change proposals [Mail, Oct. 16]. I don’t understand why he feels the need to disrespect the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Trayvon Martin. But if he thinks that it is funny that a teenager was killed in a fight with a man who was stalking him, then I truly hope something like this happens to someone he loves. Then, maybe he’ll learn some empathy and not make jokes about young men being murdered.

Malcolm Meeks

Jacksonville

Another Name Change?

Re: S. Duane England’s letter. Let us know when you change your name from England, that wretched colonizer which we had to go to war with to get rid of. Perhaps S. Duane Noname.

John Earhart

Orange Park

Differences Between Medicine and Law

Wes Denham’s column is long on invective and short on suggestions [“Practice a More Perfect Law,” Oct. 16], but the most astonishing thing is how he strides right past the overwhelming difference between medical and legal education, which renders his analogy utterly nonsensical.

The indigent who receive care in a teaching hospital are being treated by newly minted doctors (they have passed the medical exam), but those doctors are supervised by more senior residents, by attending physicians and ultimately by professors of medicine. Nothing even remotely similar exists in the legal profession.

If you graduate from an accredited law school and pass the state’s bar exam, you can immediately practice any kind of law you can get your hands on. You cannot claim to be “board certified” in a specialty area, such as real-estate law, unless you have been so certified, but you can practice real-estate law all you like.

A physician, by contrast, will be unlikely to get admitting privileges, let alone surgical privileges, in any hospital without having completed a residency.

And incidentally: How does Denham propose to get wealthy clients on whom the new attorney may train? Deny them the right to retain their own counsel?